hello and welcome to cross not where all things are considered i'm peter labelle conservative media tell us the political left in the united states has become radicalized electing joe biden would assure in an era of socialism profoundly changing the country on the other hand by many in his orbit claim nothing will fundamentally change so which is it or is it as always just about power. to discuss this and more i'm joined by my guest laura fink in san diego she is the founder and c.e.o. of rebel communications as well as a democratic strategist and in ellicott city we cross to jason nichols he is

a political analyst as well as a senior lecturer in the african-american studies department at the university of maryland right across not rules in effect that means you can jump a new job you want and i always appreciate it oh as good as any angle are you that i always go to the person that gets up early for the program so i'm glad it's you you know i'm a political junkie like that will have you i watch a lot of different things i disagree with most of it agree with a tiny bit of it but if you you know if we're in this election cycle let's take for example fox ok the impending dystopia if joe biden is going to be elected now i think that things could change when you look at the people around him but you have 2 very starkly different interpretations of fundamental change of change in the country and nothing will fundamentally change how do you see things playing out go ahead well i do go on fox news occasionally i understand the culture there but they and the fox news is about asserting a narrative as well as reporting a narrative and so the. that is part of their culture to say it to stir

discomfort in the right and make them feel like they're under threat and so i can understand with the rise of the progressive laughed and some of the ideals of the progressive left whether you're talking about medicare for all or you're talking about the green new deal that they want to because they disagree with those policies they want to demonize that that and talk about it as an as if it's extreme also you know this is we are not action here and so talkin socialism will rise and so it's uganda i'm as frightened channels that the goal really is to stir up the base and to instill estie here the rising left now that sad absolutely the left is on the rise and and the political left has gone and galvanize like never before in the age of donald trump so we see not just ideals move forward and the public conversation and opinion moving to the last but we also see firebrand leaders like

alexandria ocasio kirk has anything like bernie sanders that are able to carry that with a new generation of voters and isn't same question you know that was an excellent answer more about him yeah i think well as far as dystopian outcomes from leadership i don't think we can get any more dystopian than we are right now i think we're a very precarious situation as a nation and. we're going to get that donald rumsfeld. i think a lot of that is i think you always should point to the top and look at leadership when your leadership variables then the country variables and then the country gets torn apart we're divided we're not the united states of america and that all that ultimately falls on in the lap of leader in our leader right now is donald trump in here has not done what we look for and leadership he has not accomplished what most leaders want to do which is to actually you know. night the people behind

a common cause not unite house the country behind one person i think there where we look at some of the narratives that we've seen in media i think learn how to correct. you know there is a you know objective for one side or the other whether it's fox or most n.b.c. or some of the smaller networks they all have a merit of that they want to tell him that they want to show him and you know we could talk about the political left but i think it's a very good turn where you've got someone like joe biden who has been moderate you know perhaps and i'm going to because laura i mean it may be it's a big tent right now i mean it's the thing is i look at it is that it's really has very little we're going to talk about policy still but it has very little to do with policy it has everything to do with donald trump this is a referendum on his presidency it's not really on the policy though if joe biden comes in it's not could it be easy street for the democratic party and its rough

relationship with his progressive members right here so so united tent now because of the donald trump your reaction well we've got donald trump for a long time and we haven't had a united 10 i mean we go all the way back to 2016 so it's not i would say that certainly donald trump is a galvanizing force but it also it is it is it is not only the institutional leaders like joe biden that have a long history and record of experience in the democratic party but it's also the willingness of the political left to play ball and we see that again with alexander because you are test voting for palosi as speaker coming in working within the system and i think that that's about understanding how far to your earlier point here she understands power fundamentally at which she 29 years old and has learned that she can galvanize her or her community outside of the halls of congress and then use the power of their power to bring it to the halls of congress in the halls of power in a different way than media activists might expect the power of the political left is on the rise but let's not for. that i mean in 20 team we won with the moderates

so the democrats marched and took over congress with moderates and mostly moderate women so i do believe that fundamentally each there is some political gravity in congress that won't change however the needle is moving you know when joe biden is having weekly conversations the list at war and about how to execute policy then that is a sea change from you know his days with the each neoconservatives on his sort of intellectual squad. mentally the american people have moved and the politicians have moved with the new and old you think they're really conversations i've seen some of them not really conversations but anyway that's a subject for another program and jason i know that because you're a frequent guest on this program are very grateful but you were bernie sanders supporter. do you have if the is there a burning feeling in your stomach you must vote for joe because of donald trump not

because you love joe. well i think that's how politics work i think we you know we take the options that we have and we vote for the person that we think will do the job better in this case it is joe biden when i look at him and donald trump you know politicians or the candidates that we have available which one is i think the stronger leader and which one is better versed in foreign policy which one will do better with domestic policy and which one is interested in are more interested in the issues that i think are important for the american people and right now i think that's joe biden now joe biden were running against someone else i think it would be different and i want to be clear when i say big tent i didn't say united 10 we're not always united and i think one of the things that is that i think that's actually a good thing i think one of the things that laura pointed out is the fact that there are conversations and i think what joe biden is doing correctly right now is

that he is making it clear that the progressive left will at least be listened to and that they'll be part of the conversation now that you are at the table not necessarily that he's going to repeat them all the time it's not enough for you to be listening to you i mean after doing that you're still willing to just be you know you'll accept being listened to when i'm not trying to be you know a dictator the part of god or of the united states i want to be part of the conversation i want to be heard and you know i want for it to be a star i want to affect change i can't go along and say that everything i want should happen right now i think that you try to push for those things which you also have to work within the structures that exist and i think that's what it's about for a long time people like joe biden actually have ignored young voters they've ignored the progressive left and they've even made fun of them at times and

now. they realize that this is a political force that is growing and they could not be donald trump or anyone else without having them at the table and so now he's willing to talk he's going to make concessions which is the right thing to do i think that the right does the same there are slightly smaller but you have some people who are closer to the center and then you have some people who are really are have conversations and tea party caucus did quite well ok and to transform the g.o.p. not necessarily in a good way i'm i am not a republican i'm a conservative i don't really have anything to do with the republican splits you know well yeah but you know i kind of think that the progressives have been less affected in the democratic party let me go to you one of things i find very very curious is it going to go on fox and then we hear from the president himself they'd like to invoke the word socialism as to scare people but i think if you look at

public opinion polls a lot of younger people find that to be very positive terms i guess i sometimes find these g.o.p. people to be so tone deaf to what's actually people are thinking about a time when i'm a former academic in the early 1990 s. socialism was very popular at the university of california it just seeped into the culture of your reaction. i think the debate about socialism it's kind of a silly one. due respect to the terms and to the right wing media because it really is about policy whether it works hatch yourself to a particular philosophical label all ultimately this is kitchen table politics do you have health care and how do you get it do you have a job and how do you get it what happens when you lose your chops should i ease a job a job or is it just are we all just our own independent contractors you know getting with our apps higher being hired with no safety net pressure and i think that's by cards and you can't pin that on one party that's for sure keep going we're fighting

that battle here in california and i think it's. it's and it's an important one to talk about because people are thinking about am i a socialist or not most of the time they're thinking about can i buy a house and i want to be able to feed my family or my rights going to be protected in the workplace and i am i going to carry the burden of the nations of the cost of the nation or are wealthy people going to pay their fair share you know if i'm a woman or i'm a person of color am i going to be respected in for to the same rights in the constitution as everybody else or is the power dynamic different those are the things that people think about and share about deeply and so i think the debate about socialism is an invention to try to polarize people rather than talk about the ideas they might be our only agree because i'm actually i didn't come in this piece during europe in the 1980 s. i know what socialism is ok i always but i think a kind of a irreverent chuckle when people start talking about it and i think most americans couldn't find venezuela on the map if their life depended on it same point to you

jason. yeah i would agree i think more of this is about policy so i would agree with laura i think also as you stated that young people are not afraid of the term because they know what socialism is meaning over the years ok but i don't if you look hollow not from a philosophical standpoint and from a theoretical standpoint they understand that we have socialism all around us you know socialism there you night are so rich people certainly have so she wasn't really there is you know i think it was dr king said you know we have rugged individualism for the poor and socialism for the rich so you know and they call you know for the poor they call it welfare they call it handouts they call it socialism but you know for the wealthy they call it subsidies or for actually for people certain races it's a subsidy others it's welfare so again i think that we absolutely have socialism in

this country and it functions in some cases for the public good you know we can talk about social security you know we can talk about medicare about all money. after our break i'm going to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after a short break can you what discussion is the left radical in america state or. every crisis in america has been packaged as a bond and sold into the junk bond market with a longer maturity at a slightly lower coupon right and they've been doing this now for 40 years to the point where america's indebtedness says bend. engineered to the point of an extinction event as have many countries as has below. the world is driven by

a dream. no day or. week to ask. welcome back to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter about to remind you we're talking about whether the democratic party has been radicalized.

is going to send you a lot of let's talk about a lot of issues here. you know in looking at some of the characterizations of the political left in the united states right now there are these issues the cutting the cord the electoral college you know getting rid of it amnesty up to 2030 1000000 people renu deal whatever that really means open borders the funding the police the filibuster these are all related to the left and react to at least one of them ok go ahead. well i you take in the most conservative labeling and framing of all of those issues labels are fair i think pretty much fair well if you can badger and bad but we don't call it amnesty you know we've got immigration reform you know so so let's talk about let's talk about all of those issues a little laughter is on the rise and they have and they certainly have an agenda

that said you know also really people what accent all of the things that you're talking about whether it's policy on the environment policy on immigration policy on criminal justice reform and police reform there are broad swaths of the american people you didn't mention you didn't mention gun safety all of these issues are top issues for americans in the cans and out of the can so much and we've seen gridlock in congress you know masterfully executed by mitch mcconnell now for many many years and when broad swaths of the american people want to see and i see this independents included in that moderate democrats included in that and even slice up republicans included in that so the political left just cheering wire on issues that americans care deeply about what i think you're going to see action on those issues when we come back to congress especially if democrats take back the senate absolutely yeah but again one of the things that i mentioned are institutional changes jason giving manipulatory college ok packing the court ok i mean this is

trying to create a political monopoly adding i forgot to adding. the district of columbia state to more senators which would be 99 percent sure democrats i mean i've come to many liberals about this and they say you know what we have an imperfect democracy maybe . but at the same time you know if these are creating institutional changes in which they would create a monopoly for ever the where the left would be in control they didn't win and getting rid of the filibuster is well your reaction it's so number war and when it comes to wasn't. in d.c. do you believe in taxation without representation. yeah like that's not very democratic that's not bob is that now more on the back are down with eyes wide open and it is evening. and i mean let me just say taxation without representation and in many ways is tyranny and i actually think you know it's not

going to go to propound reasons right be honest although we know that washington d.c. one of the reasons ted kennedy actually. said it out plainly is because it's too black and to democratic and that's not why you take someone's vote away at least it shouldn't be untrue 1020 so again we need to address these things and i am when we talk about the will of the people we have to understand that the electoral college if you understand its foundation goes back to the 3 things compromise it may be david right now and you know you shouldn't have a situation where someone loses by 3000000 votes 3000000 americans believe that the other person should have won the election and then they come out the emerge the winner so to me it sounds to me like we need to address these things at least start to have a conversation about how to fix them how to make it more democratic how to make it

so that the will of the people is actually executed and again i would add you know if you want to talk about taxation without representation we can also to report a rico in there the fact is they pay federal taxes and they still don't get representation in congress they get somebody who gets to speak a couple of words and i think that that is fundamentally unfair for american citizens if you're an american citizen you should have all the same rights as the next american citizen and right now we're talking about john lewis and that's exactly what he stood for you know with with john lewis having just passed away was fighting for the fact that every american should have this. same rights particularly when it comes to voting as every other american ok but laura if hillary clinton had won in 2016 i don't think we would be having this conversation about the electoral college woodley i just i fundamentally disagree i think that that jason really hit it on the head when he said that this is really about voting rights and voting rights are fundamentally are people marching in the street and

not just not not just black people white people marching from the suburbs with their strollers saying let's try it now we speak we see the connection to a tremendously high alliance and voter disenfranchisement we see the connection between the gutting of the voting rights act and people's inability to hold people in public office so i fundamentally disagree i think that there are movements in this nation that what has happened whether you have a hillary in the white house for example trump because these issues transcend and party and are the cornerstones of our democracy not everything's a political power play but things maybe have been jerry rigged for some time in staver a certain certain constituencies i think it's always about power always i don't think that is but i don't think people in politics are virtuous it's all ok i think about it i don't i don't think john lewis he wasn't very just taking their power

and that's why these issues are being discussed because it will enhance power and it will fundamentally change the course of your hold onto it probably forever ok so you want you're talking about disenfranchising half the country because you're thinking about in franchising others ok i think it has to be a what's more balance i there really is not 0 sum game allowing people to vote it doesn't take her away already conservative voter a it just brings their folks at the table and that at the expense of other people why would anyone go. that no matter that map don't add up. that he's just does that you know that you know i don't take your gun away by giving a vote to someone else it's not a piece of others the other votes are more important other and that is the whole reason why we had the electoral college in the 1st place so make sure that new york and virginia didn't dominate national politics forever that's why. are you getting in all of the 1st of all because of the electoral college urging your dominated the

white house with the 1st part of the 1st like a lesson president 70 if it were for were from virginia because they counted there in slate africans as 3 bits of a person we you know they didn't have as big a population as they had in the north but they started counting people who didn't have the right to vote so again i think your history is a little mixed up here and i would also say that as laura stated what we need is one person one vote that's the way a democracy works so you are not no one's going to go to oklahoma and say we're going to take her where you are both. the republican remember that way we had 2 presidential candidates and 26 to both of them were from new york so i don't understand how this is going to be well you're how do you win the presidency you need 270 electoral votes that you know you can talk about the top where you're

going well but when you when you run for president you know that you need to 70 you don't need x. number of billions of votes you need 278 the girl vote you know that going into the game and if you don't like the outcome and like i can understand george w. bush gore got more than george w. bush but the goal is to win 270 and we change it if you want to have read about it right i think the argument that we're both making is not that we don't like the outcome it's that we don't like the process and i have to chase things that. it's been trying to get here now i agree and you know i think the primary thing and i think i may have kind of lost my thought here but the primary thing is that. we know we would not be having this conversation here would hillary clinton have won because the majority of americans voted for hillary clinton so i agree that discussion about the process probably would have been delayed because the

outcome was what you know them 66000000 americans one of them and that makes sense that we will have a conversation because there will be functionary you know the way it should but when you have a situation where 3 there's a 3000000 vote deficit for the winner then it doesn't make sense it's like if you play a basketball game and i have a 100 points and you have 97 you know you win that doesn't make sense so again it's true this is god and you know what is a basketball game you who gets the most points wins and the president actually united states who gets 270 electoral votes that's. well you're not matched the no not at all let me tell you here kiran keep telling us how the system works as opposed to arguing in favor of you're saying the system works this way therefore the system should work this way and fundamentally that's not an argument in favor

of it it's simply a statement i changed the rules in the middle of the game it was going to there's no change of rule if you don't give me my margin not receive it in the next 200 years we haven't seen change just so the way that i recall our structure my point is that changing the rules right now if you if you if you win the house of representatives you win the senate and you win the white house you're going to making big you have the possibility to make massive changes that will not be elected without be agreed to by a strong majority so what is the mid majority thinking on the electoral college what is the majority thinking on immigration what is the main. what i worry about is that the left takes control of the 3 branches of government they don't they will care about when the majority and position is on a lot of these because you have the power and that is the whole purpose of the power you have jason out of power because the majority voted for you if it gets out as you get the power you know except for the presidency that's the one area where

the majority care not vote for you could actually lose the majority in whig majority and that's exact point there would make it about someone like dumbass look at what. you did not vote. what about the filibuster rule again making it easier ok for the majority power to maintain power go ahead james you know i guess i wasn't here or where and it was was was taped was was essentially not allowed here and i wasn't here when when mitch mcconnell and the republicans fundamentally changed the norms of how congress works i can think back to newt gingrich when he started doing it alternately this it frustrates me to hear that the constitution democracy is has been unwound for some time by the right so when we're talking about reforms neutral reforms i don't last this we keep forgetting our history and how we got here because supreme there is no rule that

says you can't afford to appoint a supreme court justice in the election in an election year so when you abuse the filibuster which is a gentlemen's and women's agreements from time staff we have to fundamentally look at that filibuster and say is this working in the context of some of the deep deep problems of our democracy i'll say it's a l. say that it's not a good idea we've run out of time very spirited i wanted to left wing people to come on and debate it was a really good debate and i really enjoyed it and i hope our viewers that you. want to thank my guests laura and jason and i want to thank you. for watching us iraq you see you next on remember also. gandhian by north it's so many people because they copied him you saw the border

that even such a bad copy is sending. i'm not killed to plug anybody into god i'm here to find the next guy. who looked up live on a continuum being done the infidel to feed the dog she went down pontius. the clicks and moved toward the c.e.o. saying to the deflection board is comfortable saying. that is going to do that then i got out for many observers. that he and others are going to going to hear a lot about. that that you can't buy a gun you get nothing like a. long long while and then

you know also on the bottom there's a playlist which alone can choke not only. handle one new person and lead to any move 100 gandhi the new normal and gunned. down the phrase christ be ready to go to you then don't mock you join you. don't look forward to talking to you all that technology should work for people. i robot must obey the orders given by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the. 1st law. or should be very careful about artificial intelligence the point is to create trust. take on theories with artificial intelligence.

must protect its own existence. with. the headlines and the us to see pleading with the president for a cease fire lead to some corporate turn on trump for threatening more federal creeps. and anti racism protests will make as we did in washington are still in disagreement. violent rioters american arcanists have hijacked legitimate protests shame on you miss the board game are you going to just in time is expired meanwhile the french interior minister dismisses claims of police brutality saying officers used by. simply using the police of excessive force and italy plans to send them in food to sicily after schools and migrants escape a quarantine at a holding center.